Missing Listings

Has anyone seen this lately?

It recently occured to me that these once vitaly important ingredients of the daily Friday newspaper is now long, long gone (okay, so newspapers themself are fading the way of oragami dinosaurs as well, but that's another valid subject altogether).

Each Friday morning before I would head off to school or work, I would flip open the folded newspaper on the table, porch or stoop, pull out the entire Television Listings Section and flip directly to the weekend listing pages to seek out just which college football games would be broadcast in our town that Saturday and just which NFL football games would be broadcast in our area that Sunday. I certainly would get right to the most important information, first...

...I would know what I had to look forward to, or not look forward to during the weekend.

I would then flip quickly through the listings to the days of the week when my favorite shows aired, hoping not to see the dreaded (R) after the television series title - for that meant, dear viewers, this week's episode of that particular show was a repeat/re-run, and you'd probably seen it before. No tension, no new humor, no new snazzy car chases or gun fights this week...

If I had then struck out in the football game and weekly television show areas, I would give it one last attempt and look up the Movies of the Week each network would run on night a week (that means there were only three Movies of the Week, dear viewers). If none of those weekly movies was a movie that was released before the 1970's or contained an actor I had at least heard of, I had wiffed on all three television pitches.

I'd then have to make due with football teams I had no interest in and hope highlights from my favorite teams' games were aired on the recap shows; old episodes of may favorite shows and movies I had no interest in.

Maybe we wouldn't have to sit through another of Dad's vintage war movie/western movie weekend marathons.

Maybe Dad wouldn't make us watch a show on PBS.

Maybe the president wouldn't be on....

(Image from here.)

Top Gear

Tripping over things that have been around for a long while and known by others for just as long is a sort of hobby of mine.

The sharp, tight and highly entertaining television show, Top Gear, is the cause of my latest shin-knicking cultural stumble.

This BBC show has been on the air for ten years plus, and has rocketed all types of supercars, unique cars and normal cars right by its viewers on a regular basis. Not "techy" at all (surprising because the three hosts are obviously automobile-brilliant) the information presented is easily accessible yet deep enough to wet your appetite and leave you waiting to see just how the particular car discussed is going perform. Perform, they do - in all sorts of ways, each drive, test, trial is as fun as the next. The show is certainly all about the cars, and very cool cars - late model, contemporary or prototype - indeed.

The hosts are as integral a part of the show as of any show on television. They accomplish a remarkable feat: they accentuate the great cars around them, promote the cars around them, yet are so good at what they do and so enjoyable to watch as they barb with one another, pick at or praise one another's comments or choice of vehicles for a particular event, you are drawn into just how much fun the three of them are having whether or not the car of the moment out-duels a modern-day fighter aircraft or dies in a slow gray puff of smoke. Jeremy Clarkson, Richard Hammond and James May make the show what it is and it would not be the same without them - they also would not be the same without the cars because their passion would have nowhere to focus while on set, in the outback or on the aircraft carrier.

You may have guessed this is not rolling cars around an oval and comparing specs and time trial results.

This is about cars, driving them, and driving them anywhere and everywhere - Switzerland, the African desert, an RAF airfield, nighttime London or across the English Channel.

They also have at their disposal, a test track they do get raw speed/time data for the cars from as they are driven by the unidentified mythological pilot, "The Stig" who certainly is worth his driving weight in white (watch the show). The test track is also party to the weekly celebrity drive as the guest-of-the-week is allowed a time trial lap in an ordinary domestic model and is quite a good time when anyone from Ron Wood to Dame Helen Mirren is at the wheel.

The production value of the hour-long show has to be mentioned - it is top gear, period. Such a tight package visually, audibly it makes you wonder why all of the television talent was placed on this show crew and was not spread out over three or four shows.

In the end, the show is about one thing:

The cars.

The hosts know that, as well.

And they work to make sure that at the final turn, we will love the cars as much as they do.

(Official site, here.)

(Image from here.)

Charlie Chaplin

Sometimes you have to raise the bar.

At other times, you realize the bar has already been raised.

Charlie Chaplin's talent, movies and enduring quality is peerless.

If you have never seen a Charlie Chaplin movie (because the are filmed in black and white, some of them have have no audible speaking parts in them or because they are just plain old), please go find a movie of his, plop down and watch it - there is no better way to spend ninety minutes of time.

Facts and photos of Mr. Chaplin are here.

A list of all Mr. Chaplin's films are here.

Two lists of the best of Mr. Chaplin's films, here and here.

Choose one of his movies, make some time, sit down and enjoy -

Charlie Chaplin is just plain great.

Um.

(Photo taken by: Stephen)